


Lunar Eclipse fics

by Vinnocent



Series: Heroes and Wolves [16]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Death, F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25039612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinnocent/pseuds/Vinnocent
Summary: Everything comes to a head as the Nemeton is located, the Alpha Pack is confronted, a showdown with the darach ensues.
Relationships: Allison Argent/Lydia Martin
Series: Heroes and Wolves [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/117640
Kudos: 2





	1. Go, pt 3

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: This is ganked from Tumblr, where I originally posted it. I am not currently writing new fic, nor do I plan to.

“David?” Allison said, stepping closer to the fourteen year old boy who’d been missing for twenty years. “What are you doing here?”

David shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “Dead people stuff?” He laughed and wiggled his fingers at her. “Maybe I’m your ghostly guide! Oooo!”

“You’re… dead?” asked Scott.

David shrugged. “Yeah, as it turns out, rats don’t live very long,” he said. He shot a sharp look toward Scott. “She told you, didn’t she? What happens at the two hour limit? But I bet she didn’t tell you that it doesn’t _only_ happen by accident. No, Cassie was the first one to _weaponize_ the time limit. They trapped me as a rat. To live out my days on an island of rats. Which wasn’t very long, as it turns out.”

Scott was staring at him, open mouthed, his breathing beginning to get heavier. No, it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t have…

“Scott!” Stiles and Allison cried, and he realized he was beginning to flicker.

“Ooh, that’s right,” said David. “She’s the one anchoring you to the mortal world, isn’t she? Sorry you picked a shitty one, I guess?”

“That’s _enough_!” Stiles snapped. “You wanna guide, then _guide_. We’ve only got so much time to do this. Sorry you died, dude, but we have still-living people to save.”

David put his hands up. “Alright, alright,” he said, but that cocky grin didn’t budge at all. “Okay, well, what could you possibly be in this room for?” he said, looking around. “Hm, maybe there’s a clue somewhere. Well, there’s the three of you. The three dog-washing tubs you rode in on. Um… the white walls? The fluorescent lights? Oh, and there’s also the giant fucking magical stump behind you.”

They all turned. There, at the other end of the room, was the Nemeton.

“Dare you to touch it,” David sneered.

Stiles leaned in toward Allison. “You’re uncle’s kind of an asshat,” he said not at all quietly.

“He’s dead,” she pointed out.

“Thank you!” said David. “Some proper empathy. That’s really nice. But seriously, go touch it.” He grinned broadly at Scott. “Come on, wolfy. What’d you come here for?”

Uncertainly, Scott walked toward the Nemeton. Stiles and Allison remained mere steps behind him. When he came upon it, he glanced back at them. Then, slowly, he reached out to touch it.

And then he disappeared. “Scott!” Stiles spun toward David. “What did you do?!” he demanded.

“Relax!” said David, putting up his hands again. “He just went to the next stage. The Nemeton’s gonna show him something, I think. Now, it’s your turn.”

Stiles turned to the stump uncertainly. Allison shook her head. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said.

“Actually, he kind of does,” said David. He gestured around them. “I don’t see any exit doors here, do you?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Whatever gets me away from you,” he grumbled, and he reached out and touched the surface of the Nemeton’s stump. He, too, disappeared.

Allison stepped forward and reached out but was stopped when David grabbed her wrist. She looked at him quizzically, but he just smiled back kindly. “Hey,” he said. “I like you, Allison. You’re a cool person. Let me help you,” he offered. “Let’s do this together.”

Allison watched him uncertainly, but she let him guide her wrist until her hand was almost upon the surface of the Nemeton. He then reached down and spread his fingers out between hers, like a ten-fingered hand. He pushed down and they touched the Nemeton together.

Suddenly, Allison was in her mom’s SUV. Her mom was driving, talking to her. She remembered this. It was just after they’d moved to Beacon Hills. “Your father is a highly respected private security consultant,” Victoria was saying.

“She thinks you don’t know this?” David asked from the backseat.

David. This was the Nemeton. It wasn’t real.

“And a federally licensed firearms dealer,” Victoria continued. “It’s not exactly a nine-to-five office job.”

“Yeah, it is,” said David.

“I–,” said Allison.

“The hours are always going to be like this,” said Victoria.

“Yeah, but not because of those reasons,” David reminded her.

“I get it,” Allison cut in quickly. “It’s just… It’s kind of weird when he takes off in the middle of the night, rushing out with duffel bags full of automatic weapons.”

David leaned forward. “Allison? Really?” he said. “What kind of _police force_ buys weapons in the middle of the night out of a duffle bag? It was either going to be werewolves or mafia.”

“MOM, LOOK OUT!” Allison cried, pointing through the windshield as their headlights suddenly illuminated the figure of a teenage boy in the middle of the road. Victoria only barely managed to swerve around him. Allison was gasping for breath while David laughed his ass off in the back seat. “You almost killed him!”

“He ran out into the middle of the road!” Victoria cried.

“Okay, well, we have to go back!” Allison insisted. She looked behind them to see if she could still see the boy, but it was dark and raining.

“Go back?!” Victoria cried.

“What if he’s hurt?” Allison insisted.

Victoria began breathing heavily. She shook her head emphatically. “Oh, she knows,” David said, leaning forward again. “Look at her knowing. She knows there’s a werewolf in those woods tonight. And she _won’t_ tell you.”

“Mom,” Allison insisted. “Turn around.”

Victoria shook her head again.

“Mom!”

Victoria made a pained noise, but she turned the car around. When they came to the spot where they’d almost hit the boy, Victoria stopped the car to look around, but Allison got out. She immediately found a footprint in the mud by the side of the road.

“Allison!” Victoria called after her.

“Come on, Victoria, it’s a shoeprint, not a pawprint,” David said, still sitting in the car.

Allison ran off into the woods to follow the prints. “Allison!” Victoria called again angrily. “Allison!”

Allison stopped along the trail when she found a dropped inhaler. She picked it up, curious. Victoria hurried up to her. “Alright, that’s enough,” she chastised. “Back in the car.” She then saw the inhaler in Allison’s hands. She grabbed it and threw it into the woods.

“Wow, Victoria,” David mocked, suddenly appearing in the forest. “It’s an inhaler, not a bomb.”

The inhaler landed at the feet of the real Allison, suddenly appearing in the woods near David as Victoria drug away her memory-self. Allison looked around, confused. And then… Then she saw it. The Nemeton.

She gasped awake, surging out of the water of the tub. She gasped for breath. Next to her, Stiles and Scott also jumped into wakefulness, splashing and gasping for a moment in their confusion. Lydia and Agrona jumped out of their chairs where they’d been watching from. Cassie, Melissa, Deaton, and Braeden all ran in from another room.

“I saw it!” Scott shouted, getting out of the tub. “I know whe–“

Allison fell back into the tub. “ALLISON!” Agrona screamed, running to her. Scott and Stiles were right behind her.

“What’s happening?” Scott demanded.

Braeden shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “This isn’t one of the dangers. If she was going to _actually_ die, then something would’ve happened when you first went under. If Chris was sacrificed, she would’ve been released.”

“What do I do?” Agrona demanded. There were tears running down her cheeks.

“Pull her out of the water. Begin resuscitation. Speak to her. Let her know why she has to come back,” said Braeden. “Deaton, a muffling field, so Allison won’t hear us and get confused. Include everyone but Allison and Agrona.”

The air around them began to shimmer. While Agrona lifted her unconscious granddaughter out of the water, Braeden turned to Scott and Stiles. “Boys, this is vitally important. Did you meet any entities while you were there?” she demanded. “Did _anything_ try to interfere with you? Did you see Allison talk to anyone?”

The boys exchanged glances. “You mean there wasn’t supposed to be someone there?” asked Stiles.

Braeden’s eyes widened. “No,” she said. “No, there wasn’t. What was it?”

“Allison’s uncle,” said Scott.

Braeden was taken aback. “Her _uncle_?” she repeated.

“He was a kid,” said Stiles. “He said he was dead. I think he’s been dead the whole time Agrona’s been looking for him.”

“He said…” Scott glanced toward Cassie. “He said Cassie turned him into a rat and left him on an island, and he died there.”

Cassie stepped back, terrified. “David!” she gasped. Then, “SADDLER!” She ran forward, but Braeden and Deaton immediately moved to cut her off, pulling her back away from Allison and Agrona. “No, you don’t understand!” Cassie shouted at them as she tried to push past them. “He’s done this before!”

“What are you talking about?” Melissa demanded.

Cassie spun toward her, pulling away from Deaton and Braeden. “Melissa, do you remember Saddler Berenson?” she demanded. “Jake and Rachel’s cousin?”

Melissa nodded. “A car hit him on his bike,” she said. “He was in the hospital, comatose. Then, suddenly, he made a miraculous recovery. Then, he just disappeared.”

Cassie nodded emphatically. She turned back to the others. “That was David,” she told them. “He got the Escafil device and tried to sell it, not really knowing what it was. This got the Yeerks’ attention. We tried to stop it, but we ended up with David and the device while the Yeerks got his parents. He was _pissed_. We tried to do our best, but he kept acting out. He kept running off. Making threats. Morphing _us_. Trying to reach the Yeerks, to give them _everything_.

“When Saddler was hospitalized, David morphed him. Tried to take his place. We stopped him, but we never found Saddler’s body.” Cassie glanced worriedly toward Allison. “Please. Please, you have to stop him. He’s going to do it to Allison, too. He’s a _murderer_.”

“So are you,” said Stiles, looking disgusted.

Cassie was shocked. “What?”

“He was a kid who wanted his family back, and you made him a _rodent_?” he demanded.

“He _killed_ Saddler!” Cassie yelled. “He tried to kill all of us!”

“If that’s true, why’d you trap him in morph?” Stiles demanded. “I want to _kill_ Jennifer. I don’t want to hatch some elaborate plan to isolate her! If he was such a threat to you, why not go the direct route?”

“I was a child!” she told him. “We all were! We weren’t ready for that!”

“Yes, you were,” said Deaton. “The very first mission. You were the wolf, weren’t you? That means that you were the one that tore out that police officer’s throat. Not to mention a few Hork-Bajir and Taxxons.”

Cassie shook her head, backing up another step. “No, no!” she insisted. “That man knew who we were. He was going to tell the other Yeerks. We would have lost everything.”

“Isn’t that just what you said about David?” Stiles demanded. “That he wanted to tell the Yeerks?”

“I–”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Scott yelled, and suddenly everyone was looking at him. “We don’t need to talk about the morality of Cassie’s decisions under stress!” he cried. “Allison is /dying/! How do we stop it?!”

“Oh god, Agrona!” Braeden cried, glancing toward the woman clutching desperately at Allison and pleading. “She’s his mother, isn’t she?” The moment Stiles nodded, Braeden ran to pull Agrona away. Melissa ran forward to take her place, restarting resuscitation.

“But how to we _stop_ him?” Scott demanded tearfully, but Deaton looked helpless.

“I don’t know,” Deaton admitted. “There’s always potential interference, but this… This is not something we have dealt with before.”

Stiles looked around the room, trying to think of something, _anything_ that could pull Allison out of David’s grip. His eyes landed on Lydia. _Lydia!_ “Banshee,” he whispered.

Lydia turned to him, confused. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded.

“Lydia, how are you feeling right now?” he asked.

She looked at him like she wanted to set him on fire. “Are you _serious_?” she snapped. “I feel like my best friend’s life is slipping through my fingers! That’s what I’m _feeling_ , Stiles!”

“Does it make you want to scream?” asked Stiles.

Lydia looked skeptical at that. “Yes? Sort of?” she admitted.

“Let it out, Lydia,” Stiles urged. “Come on. Scream. Scream for Allison.”

Lydia watched him for a moment. Then, she glanced at Allison. At Braeden holding a struggling, weeping, desperate Agrona back in a far corner of the room, while Melissa struggled to get regular breaths from Allison. Lydia clasped her hands to her chest, grief surging up in her. It was overwhelming. It was more than she could stand. She was bursting with it. Grief and frustration and helplessness and fury. It was more than she could hold. It brimmed her heart, her throat, her lips.

And she **screamed**.

Allison gasped awake, and Melissa immediately pulled back. Agrona used Braeden’s surprise to push her away and run to Allison, dropping on her knees next to her and clutching her close. “Oh, Allison!” she cried. “Are you okay? What happened?! Is it over?”

Allison clutched at Agrona’s back, shaking. “He tried to kill me,” she whispered. “David tried to kill me.”

Agrona pulled back, horrified. “What?” she demanded.

“We met David,” Allison told her. “And he said he wanted to help me. But after I found the Nemeton and came back, he pulled me back down in there. He said we weren’t done. He said he’d been cheated. That I got the life he was meant to have, and that he was going to take it back.”

“Yeah,” said Cassie, and the others turned to her again. “That’s what he does.”

Agrona shook her head, starting to argue, but Allison cried and buried her face in Agrona’s shoulder, and Agrona just couldn’t have that argument anymore. Not then. Not after what Allison had experienced. A nagging in her mind reminded her of David’s less admirable traits, even as a teen. Of the way she’d doubted whether she should ever tell him the truth or just stay retired herself so he’d never know. It reminded her that she had also been Kate’s mother. Kate, who burned families and children alive. Agrona closed her eyes, clutched Allison tightly, and wept.

“I’m glad we have you back, Allison,” said Deaton. “But if you three now know where the Nemeton is, we need to hurry. We have very little time.”

“We’ve got almost a day,” said Stiles.

Melissa shook her head. “You were out sixteen hours,” she told them.

“We’ve been out for sixteen hours?” Scott demanded.

“And the moon rises in four,” said Deaton.


	2. Go, pt 4

“You want to _trust_ Deucalion?!” Stiles demanded, looking at Scott like he’d grown horns.

“We need him,” said Scott. “We can’t beat Jennifer without him.”

“Oh?” said Agrona. “Does _he_ have alien megaweapons?”

“Kali’s done this before,” said Scott. “Sort of. And I’m willing to bet it happened with the other packs, didn’t it?” He turned to Deaton. “The twins. Ennis. Were their emissaries human or…?”

“Ennis’s emissary was mechanical and was successfully destroyed,” said Deaton. “So is Morrell, who is currently holding off Kali with an ash circle. She’s tried to tell the pack what Deucalion has done, but…”

Scott nodded. “That means they’re prepared,” he said. “Jennifer was scared the other night. She might have been manipulating us, but she was _also_ scared of what the alphas could do to her.”

Allison shook her head and turned to Deaton. “He trusts you more than anyone,” she said. “Tell him he’s wrong.”

“I’m not so sure he is,” Deaton said, surprising them. “Circumstances like this sometimes require that you align yourself with people you’d normally consider enemies.”

“So we’re gonna trust the guy who calls himself the ‘Demon Wolf’?” Stiles sneered.

“I wouldn’t trust him, no,” said Deaton. “But you could use him to your advantage. Deucalion may be the enemy, but he could also be the bait.”

There was a clatter in another room, and they turned toward the noise. Slowly, Deaton walked out to the entry room. There, of all people, stood Ethan. “I’m looking for Lydia?” he said.

Lydia emerged from the hall and stood next to Deaton with her arms crossed. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I need help,” he admitted.

“With what?” Stiles demanded, arriving next to Lydia.

“Stopping my brother and Kali,” he said, “from killing Derek.”

– –

“So how’s the doohickey going?” asked Marco wearily.

Chris glanced back at the blinking light in his hand. “It may not last much longer,” he admitted.

“Man, those are some shitty werewolves you’ve got,” Marco grumbled.

“One of them’s your son,” said Chris.

Marco snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

“If you’re not a werewolf, what are you?” asked Chris.

“He can’t tell you,” the sheriff reminded him quickly. “Melissa says the Pentagon could come after anyone who tells or gets told.”

“Nah, it doesn’t matter,” said Marco. “When she kills me, it’ll just reset.”

Chris blinked at him. “Reset?” he repeated. “What’s that?”

Marco shrugged. “Every time one of us dies… Me, Jake, Tobias, Santorelli, Gerard, or Menderash… Every time one or some or all of us dies, it resets. We’re at the border of Kelbrid space again. We tried using different tactics on approach. We tried turning around and going home. Menderash tried to off himself before anyone could make _any_ decision, like, sixteen times. We always reset. Right back where we started.

“No one inside Kelbrid space remembers us or is expecting us. The exterior and the workings of the ship are back to normal, though things like doors and faucets will stay damaged. We ran out of food once and died of starvation a few times before whoever’s in charge of this hell decided that wasn’t fun to watch and patched the glitch.

“Tobias thinks he found a way out. Thinks he fixed it. I figured I’d just… let him. Play it nice for a while. Give us a break. Pretend we’re not dead.” He laughed bitterly. “And then I get caught by a human-sacrificing robot. Been on earth, what? A couple weeks? Less? Already got myself killed again.”

Chris and the sheriff exchanged glances. “I hate to say it,” said Chris. “But… that actually explains a lot.”

“That explains _nothing_!” the sheriff insisted angrily.

Above them, the earth began to tremble. Marco raised an eyebrow. “At least this is new,” he whispered.

– –

“We know about the lunar eclipse,” Ethan told Derek. Ethan, Lydia, Derek, Cora, and Braeden were all standing around Derek’s loft, trying to convince Derek of the plan. “So don’t think Kali’s gonna sit around waiting for it to level the playing field. She’s coming, and my brother’s coming with her.”

“Derek,” said Braeden. “I believe you’ve been advised on this matter?”

Derek glanced at her. “Why don’t _you_ advise me?” he taunted. “They think you’re our emissary, after all. You’ve gotta be somebody’s.”

“You’re not an alpha,” she reminded him.

“Neither is your mother,” he snipped.

“You stay, Kali kills you,” Braeden told him. “It’s that simple. And if that doesn’t satisfy Aiden, he’ll take down Cora. She’s still weak. You’re weaker. You need to run.”

“If you want to fight and die for something,” Cora told her brother, “that’s fine with me. But do it for something meaningful.”

He glanced back at her. “How do you know I’m gonna lose?” he asked.

“Are you _kidding_ me right now?” Braeden demanded. “Do you _like_ getting your ass kicked?”

“She hasn’t killed me yet,” Derek pointed out.

“She came close, and that was with Deucalion’s orders holding her back,” said Braeden. “He’s rescinded those orders, _and_ you’ve lost your alpha strength _and_ the strength of your pack. You’d be a fool to fight her.”

Less than an hour later, Kali was breaking the alarm box off the wall. “Where is he?” she demanded.

Lydia shrugged. “I think he said he was heading out to do some shopping, run a few errands, The usual werewolf afternoon?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Kali demanded.

Lydia glanced down at Kali’s bare feet. “Someone in desperate need of a pedicure,” she said. “I’d be happy to give you a referral.”

Kali prepared to strike, but stopped when she heard growling behind her. She turned to Aiden with a mocking sneer. “Oh really?” she said. He continued growling. “Did someone take their little assignment too seriously?”

Aiden sighed and backed down. “She’s not the problem,” he told her.

Kali glared and prepared, again, to strike, but at Aiden this time. “Maybe the problem,” she suggested, “is where your loyalties lie.”

“Oh god,” Lydia muttered. “This is about to get really violent, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Braeden.

And then the room went white. “Hi, bitch,” said Jennifer. Braeden immediately grabbed Lydia and pulled her out of the way. Kali kicked at Jennifer, but Jennifer easily ducked. Jennifer was grinning. Kali kicked again. Took a swipe. Each move failed to touch her enemy.

And then Jennifer landed the punch. They could hear Kali’s bones break as she flew back away from her. She landed, hard, on the floor. Aiden growled and attacked, but Jennifer ducked again. She quickly landed a punch to his face, both breaking and dislocating his jaw. He fell to the ground.

Ethan ran to his brother and grabbed his arm. They began to shake and quiver as their flesh melted together. Jennifer rolled her eyes, walked over to them, grabbed them by the shoulders, and sent shocks through their entire system. She tore them back into separate beings and flung them to opposite sides of the room.

Kali raised to her feet, and Jennifer turned to her. Her hologram flickered and changed to another. To Julia. “Look at me, Kali,” she said. “Look at the face you killed.”

“That’s not you,” Kali sneered.

“What I do now _needs_ to be done,” said Julia. “Monsters like you can’t be allowed in a peaceful world. A world of love. If only you weren’t such a terrible person… I loved you, Kali.”

Kali laughed. “You can’t love anything,” she sneered. “Everything I had with Julia was a lie. You were a lie. You’re nothing more than a machine.”

Angrily, Jennifer moved toward her again, only to be blown back by some kind of massive pulse. The white collapsed away, and Tyler looked up from his device as Agrona pulled the cartridge out of her alien cannon and inserted another. “Oh good,” said Tyler. “You can see it now.”

Qezek looked down at her metallic paws, fizzing and crackling. Her hologram had been destroyed in the blast and residual energy was still interfering with her sensors.

So she ran.

Agrona pulled the trigger. Again. “Dammit, it’s still charging,” she snarled as Qezek leapt down from Derek’s balcony. Tyler turned back, running out into the hall to take the stairs down. Agrona tossed the cannon aside and pulled out a Dracon just as Kali turned toward the door. “Not so fast,” Agrona sneered.

Kali growled furiously.

Agrona fired.

– –

Stiles struggled to peer through the storm as he raced his Jeep toward the site of Scott’s bite. “Come on,” he mumbled to himself. He leaned forward to peer through the windshield.

“WHOA!” he shouted as he narrowly missed a low branch.

Turning to see what had happened, he never saw the tree coming.

– –

Allison’s car and Scott’s bike arrived at the meet up point. The entry of Beacon Hills Preserve. Where, just over a year ago, it had all started. Boyd, Erica, and Isaac emerged from the woods. “We still don’t have them,” they admitted.

<Well, you don’t know where to look,> said Cassie. Her owl morph dropped onto the hood of Allison’s car. With the noise of bones crunching, she transformed into herself. Though strange at first, Isaac had been right; she _did_ look like an angel. No longer owning the military-style morphing suit, she was now dressed in tight work-out clothes she’d borrowed from Melissa. She had no shoes.

Scott turned to the betas. “Allison and Cassie and Stiles, when he gets here, are going to go look for our parents. I’m gonna go with Deucalion to defeat Jennifer. I want you three down-wind and just barely within earshot, in case something goes wrong,” he ordered. “Deucalion might sense you, but he’s got bigger issues to worry about right now.”

Everyone nodded. As soon as Cassie and Allison were headed down the trail to the Nemeton, Cassie pulled Allison in close. “What’s with the wobbling eye color?” she asked.

“Red is for alphas,” said Allison. “Scott’s a beta, which is yellow, but… I think…” She glanced back the way they’d come. “Deaton said he could become an alpha through character and will, and I think Boyd, Erica, and Isaac have already traded their allegiance from Derek to Scott. And he’s… certainly being willful. He’s damned determined to make sure no one dies tonight, no matter what.” She glanced back again. “And I think it’s making him an alpha.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Cassie.

Allison shook her head and continued on. “I don’t know,” she admitted worriedly.


	3. Go, pt 5

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we, Scott?” asked Deucalion, waiting at the lookout point. From there, they could see all of Beacon Hills below them.

“I got a little delayed.” Scott looked around, peering into the woods. “Where are the others?”

“Mine or yours?” Deucalion asked. “Because I know where _your_ pack is.”

Scott’s stomach churned. “They’re not my pack,” he insisted. “They’re my friends. And I was asking about yours.”

Deucalion smiled. “They’re occupying themselves with other pursuits,” he said.

“So it’s just you and me against her?” Scott asked.

“You. Me.” Deucalion nodded toward the forest behind him. “Them.” He smiled at Scott. “But I think you’ll be surprised what a good team we make.”

“We just need to keep Jennifer distracted long enough for the parents to be freed,” Scott told him. “If she’s not able to kill them, then she’ll be powerless.”

“Powerless,” Deucalion repeated. “Aside from being an indomitable killing machine.”

“But you’re prepared for that, right?” asked Scott, and Deucalion lifted the pail of thermite. “Good. Then, I have a plan.”

– –

Derek’s car screeched to a stop in front of the small, battered, and flickering canine robot standing in the middle of his lane. “Stay in here,” he told Cora before getting out of the car.

“Derek!” Cora called, scared, but he ignored her.

Derek walked up to Qezek. “All this way just for me?” he asked.

“For us. For anyone who’s ever been their victim,” she said. “For everyone who’s _going_ to be if we don’t stop them.”

“Funny, how I feel slightly more victimized by you than by them.”

“They kidnapped and attacked your betas,” she said. “Tried to manipulate you into murdering them.”

“You tried to kill Cora!” he snarled. “You _have_ killed at least twelve people! You’re about to kill three more!”

“I don’t have to,” she said. “ I need a guardian, And that’s a role that can either be filled by the three parents I was forced to take or by you.”

“Forced?” Derek sneered. “Who, exactly, was forcing you?”

“My programming,” said Qezek. “It’s my duty to ensure a safe world. I _had_ to manipulate the currents. To get them to favor me. Twelve deaths is _nothing_ compared the countless many they have taken and _will_ take.”

“I can’t help you,” Derek said. “I’m not even an alpha anymore.”

“All I need is for you to help me get Deucalion in the right place at the right time,” she told him. She stepped forward toward him. “ I have the eclipse in my favor, but the moon’s only gonna be in the earth’s umbral shadow for 15 minutes. That’s the extent of my window. There’s no decision to struggle with. Help me kill him, and the others live! Just help me!”

– –

Cassie sniffed along the ground in her wolf morph. <You’re sure this is the right way?> she asked.

“I know we’re near it,” said Allison. “You still haven’t smelled anyone?”

<No. I’m trying but… Wait!> Cassie’s head perked up, and she stilled.

Allison watched her, wide eyed. “What is it?” she asked.

Cassie was looking around, her tail tucked slightly. <Some kind of… Some kind of electronic buzz-screeching?>

“The emitter!” Allison realized. “Follow it! That’s where my dad is!”

Cassie raced forward, and Allison followed her. Right to the Nemeton. “That’s it!” Allison cried. “That’s…” She gripped her head. Something ached inside her.

Cassie sniffed around, then ran around to a hatch on the other side. She barked, then waited. <I can hear them!> she reported. <They’re underneath!> She started demorphing as Allison ran around the stump and to the hatch. She pulled it open and ran down the stairs.

“DAD?” she called. “DAD?!”

“Here,” Chris groaned.

Allison ran to him and collapsed at his side. “Oh god,” she cried, kissing him on the forehead. “Thank god.”

“Marco!” Cassie called running down after her.

“Yo,” said Marco.

“Where’s Stiles?” Stilinski called as Cassie ran over to help untie him. “Where’s my son?”

Cassie looked around worriedly. “I, uh, I’m sure he’s coming,” she said.

“Cassie, how long did you say it’s been?” Marco called.

“Fifteen years,” she reminded him again. She got the sheriff’s hands untied and moved on to Marco, letting the sheriff undo the rest.

Marco snickered. “Fifteen years, and you still can’t lie?” He rubbed his wrists as she freed them.

“Well, if I’m only imagined by you, then I guess I can’t improve from what you remember, can I?” she teased. She pulled the wires out of the charger.

“What’s to improve?” he teased back.

Above them, the earth began to crumble and quake. They ducked down as soil began to fall on their heads.

– –

“The first day of class,” Scott said, as he guided Deucalion up to the old abandoned distillery that still had the werewolves’ “vengeance” symbol clawed into the side, “Jennifer sent all of us a message. It was the last line from Joseph Conrad’s _Heart of Darkness_. I got a message of my own to send her.”

He pulled out his phone and turned to the spiral cut into the corrugated steel. He began taking a video. “See this symbol?” he asked. “It’s a symbol of revenge. You talk about balance, about saving people. We know what you really want, and now you know where to find us.”

– –

They struggled to pull off all the ropes and wires off in time. The soil and rock was collapsing. A beam at the far end snapped, and Marco started morphing. “Hurry!” he screamed at them through a mouth full of gorilla teeth as he began pulling off his shoes.

Allison, Chris, and Stilinski hurried toward the stairs, but it was too late. The stairs collapsed in front of them.

– –

Scott watched as Qezek approached the distillery through the dark haze of the storm. He was surprised when another shape emerged behind her. Derek.

“What are you doing?” Scott asked.

“Believe it or not,” said Derek. “Trying to help you.”

“Like brother against brother,” said Deucalion. “How very American.” He smirked at the small robot. “Are you ready, Jennifer? Julia? Whoever you are today?” He folded up his long cane. “Killed any more people for power?” He began to step toward her. “Should we show them why you needed to _sacrificed twelve **innocent people JUST TO FACE ME?**_ ”

And it was then, facing Deucalion’s true form, that Scott began to realize how deeply screwed he was.

– –

“It’s blocked,” said Chris. “Can anyone see?” He looked at Cassie, who shook her head.

Behind her, Marco was finalizing his gorilla form. Oddly, the metallic eye stayed in place. He loped forward and tried to find a way through the wreckage, but it just broke more under his weight. He turned and looked back at them. <I could maybe get out,> he said. <But to get them out, we need a more agile climber.>

Cassie nodded and green scales spread along her skin. “I’ll go Hork-Bajir. You stay down here to–“ The ground above them began to shake and collapse again, and Marco ran forward to shove the roof up, keeping the others from being crushed. “Do that,” Cassie finished, just before her mouth stretched out into a beak. Her hair disappeared and spikes thrust forward in a row along her head. Her neck stretched out. Her bones and spine stretched. She had to get down on all fours to fit in the space. <Get out of the way,> she told them, only seconds before a long tail sprouted from behind her. The last thing to come out was the dozens of razor-sharp blades.

“Is that what a kanima is?” asked the sheriff.

“NOPE!” cried Chris, getting as far back from Cassie as possible.

– –

Derek threw himself at Deucalion, but Deucalion caught both hands. Taking the opening, Qezek moved in to hit him, but Erica swung down from the rafters, tackling her. “Ow!” Erica cried out. “You have _no_ give.”

“I’m _metal,_ moron,” Qezek sneered. Behind them, Deucalion raised Derek into the air by his throat.

“DON’T CALL ME A MORON!” Erica snarled, ripping through exposed wires with her claws, again and again.

“Don’t kill her!” Scott yelled, and Erica held back her next swipe. “Don’t kill either of them!” As he demanded it, his eyes shone bright red.

Deucalion briefly grinned at that, hungrily, but then he remembered that he was still holding a loser by the throat while another beta sat atop a murderous robot. “Don’t kill them?” he repeated. “Did you forget why we’re here?”

“She can stop this,” Scott insisted. “No one has to die. Just _stop_ this, Jennifer!”

Boyd and Isaac dropped down on either side of Qezek and Erica. Isaac was holding the thermite with the lid removed. Boyd grabbed Erica and pulled her back. “This ends one way or the other,” said Isaac. “He wants to go the nice route. If I were you, I’d let him.”

“ _This_ was your plan?” Deucalion demanded, tossing Derek aside. “To _ask_?!”

“Good thing I had a better one,” said a familiar voice. A hologram fizzed away, revealing, in the opposite doorway behind Scott, Eva Vela and Erek King.


	4. Gone

Cassie climbed up onto the wreckage of the stairs and checked her foothold. She used the instincts of the Hork-Bajir to decide where to put her weight and what to hold onto in order to do what she needed to. Once she was satisfied, she reached down. “Allison! Hurry!” she cried in a sort of guttural lisp.

Glancing nervously back at her father, Allison ran forward and took the beast’s hand. “Okay, put your foot on my knee-blade to hoist yourself up,” Cassie instructed. “There you go; I’ve got you. Good girl. Can you climb to my shoulder? Okay, good. You should be able to hoist yourself out from there.”

<Yeah, hurrying would be nice,> Marco snarled in their heads.

Chris glanced nervously between the monstrous Cassie helping his daughter out of the pit and the struggling Marco trying to keep the ceiling of the root cellar up. “Are you… psychic shapeshifters?” he asked, confused.

<Dude! Later!> Marco snapped. <Also, unfortunately, no. Well… sometimes. If you have a Leeran morph.>

“What?”

“Argent!” Cassie snapped. He glanced over toward her, swallowed nervously, then hurried over. “Same way that Allison went,” she told him. “Knee-blade first. Good.” He wobbled slightly when he tried to pull himself up, despite how firmly she was gripping his arm. “Okay! It’s okay! Stand there for a second.”

As she wrapped her free arm around his legs, the earth began to shake again. Her claws dug into his leg, but they both decided not to say anything about it. She watched Marco worriedly as he grunted and huffed under the increased weight, but there was nothing she could do but hurry along. “Okay, I’m going to haul you up. Allison, take his arms as soon as you can.” She raised herself up on her other arm, the one gripping wood and roots, and pulled him toward the surface. Only when she was sure that Allison had him did she release him.

“Stilinski!” she called. “Hurry!”

The sheriff pulled himself forward, wobbling slightly. “I’m not sure I can do that,” he admitted.

“I know. You’ve been here almost two days. You’re dehydrated and weak,” she said, climbing up and out. “Just get below me. As close as you can come.”

The sheriff forced himself as close as he could. The next rumble, however took his feet out from under him, and he fell into the rubble of the stairs with a cry of pain. Marco’s own cry of agony was filling their heads as more earthen weight piled on top of the beam.

Cassie appeared again. This time, upside-down, with her long tail wrapped around a particularly thick root, and the claws of her feet digging into the edge of the soil. She reached down for him. “Just grab my hands and hold tightly!” she ordered.

It took him a moment to get to his feet, and then he had to hop to reach her, but he was able to grab her hands. He couldn’t keep back another cry of pain as she pulled him up by the wrists. As she coiled her reptilian body, she pulled him against her chest, releasing a wrist to wrap an arm around his middle. She rolled up to the surface.

That was when the whole thing collapsed, sending them rolling onto the top of bowl formed by the collapsed root cellar. “MARCO!” Cassie screamed.

And _that_ was also when Stiles arrived with his aluminum baseball bat, just in time to see a reptilian monster seemingly tackle his father into a pit. He slid down the side of the bowl as Chris shouted for him to stop. The very moment Cassie turned toward him, he cracked the bat across her skull.

– –

“It would be a good idea for you to step back now, Ms. Reyes,” the governor told her. Erica glanced at Scott before backing off the robot to join her fellow betas.

The two Chee, however, had their attention locked on each other. “Erek,” said Qezek.

“Julia?” he asked. “Julia Baccari?”

“It’s Jennifer Blake now,” she said. She looked down at herself. “Well, I guess not anymore.”

“Same initials,” said Erek. “Interesting choice. Julia must have meant a lot to you.”

“I know what this looks like,” she said, struggling to her feet as wires crackles and gears struggled. “But what I’m doing is right.”

“I know,” he said. He started moving toward her.

“I had to kill them,” she said. “To stop the killings.”

“You’d be surprised how much I understand that right now,” he said. He was standing in front of her, looking down with eyes full of pity and grief.

“No, Erek, they’re so much worse than the Animorphs,” she said. “They’re not even trying to put the violence to use. They just kill. Kill and kill and kill and relish in the blood.”

Erek nodded stiffly. He reached out and pulled her toward him. Pulled her into a hug. He clutched her there. Tears rolling softly down holographic cheeks. His right hand was on the middle of her back, and something cracked and buzzed beneath it.

“Erek, we have to stop the monsters,” she said.

“I am,” he told her, whispering.

“Thank god,” she said. “I’m so gl”

And then she stopped. The lights slowly dimmed. The whirring and sparking ended. She became limp in his arms, like a toy. He took a shaking breath, still clutching her.

“Are you telling me,” Derek snarled, “that there was an _off button_?”

Erek granted him a sharp glare before lifting his hand from Qezek’s back, revealing that he had been holding a small crystal the size of a grape.

“The Pemalite crystal,” Erica gasped, remembering it from the brief history Deaton had given them of Erek, the first person the Chee had suspected.

“I did not ‘turn her off’, as you said,” Erek told them. “I deprogrammed her. Obliterated her data. It’s irreversible, and it’s the deadest any one of us can get. And it was the calculated kindest end to this travesty.”

– –

“Stiles, stop!” the sheriff cried, grabbing the bat.

“Dad, it’s a kanima!” Stiles shouted. “It’s a bad monster thing!”

“No, Stiles! Stiles, calm down,” the sheriff said. Unable to take away the bat, he instead pulled his panicking son against his chest. “Stiles, it’s Cassie. Okay? It’s Cassie.”

“Wh…? Cassie’s a kanima?” Stiles said, confused.

“Ow,” Cassie said, standing up again on wobbling legs, and lifting a hand to her head, where dark green blood was leaking down from the gash that Stiles had created. “Gotta love the hardiness of a Hork-Bajir.” She turned to Stiles. “That’s _Hork-Bajir_ ,” she said. “H. O. R. K. Hyphen. B. A. J. I. R. I don’t know what a kanima is, but I’d appreciate it if you guys would stop freaking out about it.”

Stiles dropped the bat. Without really thinking about it, Allison bent down and picked it up again. “Sorry,” Stiles said, still gawking at her.

<What happened up here?> Marco asked suddenly. <I smell Hork-Bajir blood.>

Cassie spun around, peering wildly into the darkness. “ _Marco?!_ ” she demanded. “Where are you?”

<I’m the mole. Hold on.> There was the sound of bones crunching. In a much less beautiful sight than Cassie’s morph. An ever-growing mound of flesh and bone slowly transformed from a mole-like shape into a distinctly Marco-like shape. A naked Marco-like shape. “If I’d known I was going to get kidnapped, I’d’ve worn my party dress,” he quipped, still crouching on the ground.

Cassie smiled. “You’d think we’d have come to expect these things by now.” She turned toward the group. “Anyone have a coat?”

“You know,” said Stiles. “ _Now_ , I can see the family resemblance.”

The sheriff hit him. “Go check your car for clothes,” he told him.

– –

“Well…” said Deucalion, moving toward the door. “Thanks for that. I’ll be returning to my pack now.”

Eva stepped forward, blocking his path. “You have no pack, Deucalion,” she told him. “Kali, Ethan, and Aiden are in Argent custody. Morrell has returned to her people. And, of course, you killed Ennis.”

Deucalion laughed at her. “You’re really going to do this, sweetheart?” he drawled mockingly. “You think you stand a chance against me. You? An _omega_.”

Scott’s eyes widened in surprise as he realized it was true. He’d been too distracted until then, but now he sensed it. Smelled it. Eva hadn’t been hiding the scent of her genetics; she’d been hiding the scent of her lycanthropy.

Eva sneered. “Not _an_ omega,” she quipped. “ _The_ omega.” The light around them changed as the lunar eclipse began and the werewolves’ powers melted away, leaving them completely human. Eva hardly seemed to notice, still standing fearlessly before Deucalion. “I’m the endgame, _sweetheart_.”

Deucalion snorted. “You think your CBI can get her in the next fifteen minutes?” he asked “Or that I won’t be able to break free as soon as this eclipse is over?”

“No,” she said. “Things like you are best solved in older ways.”

Deucalion seemed suspicious then, turning his attention briefly toward Scott before addressing Eva again, still keeping up his cocky guise. “You won’t get my power if you kill me in an eclipse,” he pointed out.

“I don’t need your power,” said Eva. “And I sure as hell don’t want it.” She pulled the Dracon from her pocket.

“ABUELA, NO!” Scott shouted, but it was too late. Deucalion’s scream rang out as he fizzled into atoms. “ _Why_?!” Scott demanded, angry and upset.

She put her Dracon away. “From the first day of my regained freedom,” she said quietly, “I swore, I would become as powerful as her. Better, even. I would put her to shame. Empires would quake to see me come. I worked years for knowledge, equipment, political power, allies… Because never again would I watch another child be destroyed by the wiles of monsters.” She turned then, to Scott. “And I hope you stay mad at me. I hope you _never_ understand this.”

Scott shook his head. “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “I’m… I didn’t want to…” He glanced back at the spot where Deucalion had been, then at his grandmother. She was surprised to see tears welling in his eyes. “But I am really, really not mad at you.”

Her heart ached for what she’d denied herself so long and, for him, she’d give in just this once.

She pulled him into a hug. The loving hug of his grandmother.

– –

“Alpha Kali,” said Agrona Argent, surrounded by hunters than hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves. She stood before Kali, who was forced to kneel on the ground as the hunters had wisened up enough to bother to cuff her ankles and to cuff her hands to her ankles behind her. “You are hereby found guilty of the death of Steven Adams, the ambulance driver for Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. Normally, one murder of a human is considered severe enough to consider the death of the werewolf that killed them. However, given your bloody history even among other werewolves and the chaos you have wrought in this city and the implications of prior human death, you have left very little to consider.”

Kali growled at her. “Just get to the point already,” she snarled.

“It is the decision of this council that you should be executed,” Agrona informed her. “However, there is _one_ way in which you can save yourself. Along with an oath to never murder _anyone_ for any reason other than self-defense again, and we _will_ know, you can free yourself simply by providing information.”

Kali stopped growling. She tilted her head curiously. “What information?” she demanded. “You already know everything about my… former pack.”

“Tell us,” said Agrona, “everything you know about what Jennifer Blake was and where it came from.”

A broad smile spread across Kali’s face.


	5. Reunion

Erek, Braeden, Eva, Melissa, Scott, and Lydia were all sitting in a row of chairs along the far wall of the police station’s lobby, in that order, pretending not to notice the stares and gossip of nearby officers, when Stiles, the sheriff, Marco, and Cassie finally arrived. Derek had opted to locate his sister and go home. Chris and Allison had been too exhausted for police reports, and the sheriff had told them they could go home as well and they’d be called later in the week if needed. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac had all refused to willingly walk into a police station.

Eva stood as soon as she heard the door, as she had every time someone had come in the door. As soon as she saw Marco, she rushed forward and wrapped him in her arms, clutching him tightly. “Um, hi, Mom,” Marco mumbled into her shoulder. “I miss you, too, but can we leave the hugging for a time when I have proper pants?”

Eva sighed wearily and pulled back just enough to see that he was wearing an oversized jacket and someone’s track shorts. But she still did not let him go. “You’d think you’d know by now to always wear a morphing suit,” she teased. Then she kissed him on the forehead.

“Is that Erek?” Cassie asked, as she joined everyone else.

“Don’t talk to me,” he grunted without looking up.

At that moment, Special Agent Berenson joined them. “Mr. King, would you mind granting us some privacy?” she asked, and suddenly they were surrounded by white.

“You know about him now?” asked Cassie, surprised.

“How could I not know about him?” she demanded. “I was literally asked to investigate human sacrifices where some of the sacrifices were _robots_.”

“Androids,” Erek corrected.

She turned to him. “That means ‘human-looking,’” she told him.

“It’s the best word English has,” he said. He was still glowering straight ahead. “And far better in implication than ‘robot.’”

She shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “Some of the sacrifices were _androids_.”

“I’m sorry; I’m a little confused,” Sheriff Stilinski said, pushing to the front of the group. “Why does everyone know who you are but me?”

“Yes, sorry,” she apologized. She extended a hand to him. “Special Agent Jordan Berenson, FBI.”

“So you’re not Rachel?” asked Lydia.

Even Erek turned to look at her. Jordan’s face was a mask of disgust. “No,” she all but snarled. “Rachel is dead.”

Lydia shrugged. “Doesn’t stop everyone.”

“Stop talking about my sister,” Jordan snapped, and Lydia immediately quietened, cocky attitude disappearing for the moment. Jordan turned her attention back to the group. “Okay, so I’m going to ask you all what happened, and, one by one, I want you to tell me in clear, concise, _truthful_ answers. I don’t need the full details yet; I’ll schedule proper interviews for that. But if you lie about _anything_ , you will become an Unsolved Mystery. Am I understood?”

Everyone nodded.

She pointed to the Sheriff. “You first,” she said.

“I was kidnapped by an evil ro– _android_ ,” said Stilinski. “And kept in a root cellar in the forest near the Hale House while she gathered two others, Marco Guerra and Chris Argent, to be sacrificed to a tree stump.”

Jordan glanced at Erek. “Is this normal?” she asked.

“Not remotely,” he said.

She turned to Marco and Eva. “You next,” she said.

“I lost my pants in the forest, and this kid was kind enough to lend what little in his bag wasn’t in _bad_ need of laundering,” Marco said. Eva smacked his arm. “Okay, fine. I spent fifteen years dying in space. Came back. Was kept in quarantine. Was then released with Cassie as my transfer, upon which we discovered I could do this–”

He reached past Stiles to touch Cassie and promptly disappeared. With a screech of alarm, she jumped back, and he returned to being with an “Ow.” Cassie jabbed Stiles, who was standing between them. “Hit him for me,” she instructed, but Eva obliged for her instead.

“I knew it,” Melissa snarled. She looked near tears. “It’s not the real Marco is it? I couldn’t be. He went off and died somewhere, didn’t he?” Scott reached out to calm her, but she only got more fervent. “Because _my_ Marco can morph, and anyone that can morph would not be covered in scars, would not have a false eye. Those things would morph out. And he _certainly_ isn’t a hologram!”

“It’s not a hologram,” Erek said, standing from his seat for a better look. “I believe… a flesh and blood Marco just… just blinked in and out of existence. Or… out and in, as the case may be.”

“Actually, given what I’ve heard of the story the six crew members of The Rachel told about their whereabouts for the past fifteen years,” said Cassie, “it makes sense. I’d appreciate, Jordan, if you didn’t report this aspect to your superiors until we’ve learned more, but… As they reported, upon meeting and battling with the Blade ship, The Rachel was disabled, and Jake felt his only recourse to stopping them was to ram The Rachel into the Blade ship. Despite the fact that all six crewmembers unquestionably died in the crash, they found themselves awakening onboard an intact version of The Rachel just as it entered Kelbrid space, positioned exactly as they had been the first time.”

Lydia got up and started moving toward the door. “Lydia!” Stiles called. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said. “I’m done. He makes me want to scream, and now I know why, and I’ve had _enough_ zombies for a lifetime.” She took a deep breath and continued, “If the police or FBI need to ask me any further questions, they should have my information on file by now. Stiles certainly does.” With that, she stalked straight out of the hologram.

“Anyway…” said Cassie, returning her attention to Jordan. “It’s basically been Groundhog Day for them since then. No matter what decisions they change. No matter what tactics they use. Eventually, at least one of the six of them dies, and they all reset to the moment they entered Kelbrid space. However, over time, they discovered that they retained most of the scars from their death injuries, some of which even carry over into their morphs, such as Marco’s Kelbrid-tech eye. Eventually, however, Tobias, Gerard, and Santorelli enacted a successful plan that got them, alive, out of Kelbrid space _with_ Aximili.”

“Tobias the bird?” asked Scott.

“He’s not a bird anymore,” said Cassie.

“You said ‘rest of his life,’” Stiles reminded her.

“It’s complicated,” Cassie told him. “There was interference from… someone powerful. Otherwise, it would’ve been permanent.”

“Which is why ‘someone powerful’ was his go-to answer for Kelbrid space,” said Marco. “Naturally, the Air Force sided with Jake, deciding it had all been some kind of alien-created hallucination. A PSYOP thing.”

“And you settled on ‘hell’?” the sheriff asked, raising an eyebrow.

Marco shrugged. “I died. There’s no way I’m going to heaven, so…”

“This is where you shut up,” Eva told him, pulling him closer. And he did, closing his eyes and letting her cling to him.

Cassie took a deep breath, then continued, “We know from past experience that I’m sub-temporally grounded to an anomalous degree. False timelines tend to deteriorate around my existence.”

“You’ve been in other timelines?” asked Scott.

Cassie shook her head and laughed lightly, and Marco smirked knowingly. “Oh, you have _no_ idea,” she said. Another deep breath, then she continued, “Anyway, Marco has touched me a total of five times since his arrival, including the incident you just saw. Once, his appearance changed to an unmarred one. Twice, a wound reopened; one across his belly and one across his throat. And twice more, he disappeared temporarily. It was this that led me to believe that Tobias was right. _Someone_ had interfered with them, the revivals fracturing the timeline into a multitude of shards. Their very existences sustained by wrapping their beings around these multiple realities. And now, by bringing themselves out of it, they’ve come home to where I exist. Even without touching them ever again, it’s probable that merely existing in the same reality as me will eventually unravel them from these fractured timelines.”

“And then what happens?” asked Melissa, still eying Marco suspiciously.

“I have no idea,” Cassie confessed. “They could return to normal. They could reset again. They could die. And there’s no way for me to stop it.”

“I’m not hearing an argument for me being wrong,” Marco grumbled, and Eva shushed him again, but he finally pulled away from her. “Anyway, _Jordan_ , after we discovered that all on the ride over, we stopped at a gas station, and I was bashed in the head as I came out of the bathroom. Blah blah blah, same stuff Sheriff said.”

Jordan took a moment to digest that, then breathed deeply and turned to Stiles. He shrugged. “Uuh… My best boiled-down version?” he said. “My best friend is a werewolf. Bad things keep happening. I get involved because I don’t like bad things happening to him. Just as we were starting to figure out this mess and related messes, the evil android took my dad.”

Jordan squinted at him. “Werewolf?” she repeated.

“There’s like… a _bunch_ in this town,” said Scott. “And one of them bit me.” He swallowed nervously. “Peter Hale, specifically.”

“I’ll send you a report,” Eva promised Jordan, and Marco gave his mother a skeptical look.

Jordan sighed deeply. “And Cassie?”

“I’ll also file a report,” Cassie said. “The summary is that Melissa asked me here to help her son after discovering he was a werewolf, thinking my morphing ability might give me some perspective on the situation. I, um…” She blushed. “I ended up staying longer than I expected. When this darach thing arose, I tried to help Scott and his friends, tried to be in place to defend them, but then The Rachel landed and I had to leave. And we just told you about what happened since then.”

“You really named it The Rachel?” asked Jordan, her expression softening slightly.

Marco shrugged. “I think Jake did? Maybe Tobias?” he admitted. “Isn’t anyone in the universe gonna say anything about it, though.”

Jordan turned to Scott. He shrugged. “Apparently, I’m going to be a ‘true alpha’?” he said. “And that made this alpha pack come after me and Derek, who’s a regular alpha. And the darach was already after them because of Kali and decided this was a good place to finally get started. So a bunch of people died until I could find a way to stop it.” He shrugged. “Except I didn’t. The governor and Mr. King did.”

“You did more than you know,” Eva assured him.

Jordan turned to Melissa, who also shrugged. “My son is a werewolf,” she said helplessly. “I found that out a few months ago, when a boy held us hostage in this police station and shot Scott in front of me.” Her voice broke a little when she said it, and Scott reached over and took her hand. Marco watched them carefully, like they were some kind of puzzle. “I freaked out. I called Cassie. Then things were better until yet another murderer moved into town, leaving me in constant fear for my son’s life. For all their lives.”

When Jordan turned to Braeden, she laughed. “Please,” she said. “I’m the one that’s going to be writing Mom’s report.” When Eva protested this, Braeden stuck a tongue out at her.

“I’ve already told you everything,” said Erek. “I was called in by Ms. Morrell this morning after what was apparently a huge debate among Chee. I’ll only be staying in town until the Chee bodies are released so I can take them to the Pemalite ship.”

Jordan groaned and rubbed her forehead. “Okay, all of you need to stay in town until I say I’m done with you, and that is… probably going to take a while,” she said. “From the sheriff, I need a full list of _everyone_ who is even remotely connected to any of this and a summary of their involvement. A timeline of events would also be helpful. The rest of you are free to go.”

Erek dropped whatever hologram had surrounded them, and Eva motioned for Braeden to join her as she pulled Marco away. “Oh, he’s not going with you,” Jordan suddenly interrupted.

Eva stopped. “Excuse me?” she demanded.

“Yeah, pro tip?” Jordan said. “Don’t file for him to be moved to family when you haven’t been legally recognized as a member of his family for twenty years. The family he has on file is Melissa and Scott McCall, and that’s where he’ll stay until you’re able correct your fuckup.”

Behind her, Braeden was slowly sinking down into her seat, face heating up. Eva shot her a daughter a Look.

“Whoa, no!” Melissa protested. “I’m still not convinced that’s Marco, and I haven’t consented to this! He’s been out of our family dynamic for fifteen years; he can’t just be shoved back in at random!”

“Well, then everyone needs to practice their paperwork,” said Jordan. “Because according to what you filed just before the retrieval mission, you absolutely _do_ consent to this.” She turned walked off toward her borrowed office. “Later, losers!” Marco smiled to watch her go.


	6. Homecoming

When Scott walked up to the house, he could hear them talking inside. Hesitating, he waited outside and listened.

“So…” Melissa said, taking a deep breath. “You don’t think we’re real?”

“To be fair, you don’t think I’m me, so…” A pause. “I guess we’re even?”

“We’re never going to be even, Marco.” There was another, longer pause. Then, “I don’t get it. If you really believe that, then why…”

“Why what?” asked Marco.

“Why _anything_?” she asked. “But at the very least… Cassie told me that you had a chance to save yourself in the root cellar. Instead, you held up the rafters for everyone else and almost got yourself killed.”

“I didn’t get myself killed.”

“But you could have.”

Marco sighed heavily. “What am I supposed to do, Melissa? Sit on my ass and watch people I love die while I wait for the reset? I don’t care if it’s fake; I’m not watching that. I’m not _doing_ that.”

“If you love us so much, why’d you leave?” Melissa snapped, and Scott felt his breath catch in his throat.

Marco’s voice was completely casual, like he didn’t get what was wrong with what he was saying. “Because Ax needed me, and you didn’t.”

“What? Marco…”

There were the sound of feet on stairs. “We found the blankets,” Cassie reported.

Scott decided to enter, then, as Cassie and Isaac descended the stairs with Cassie holding a box marked “winter blankets.” “Hi, Scott!” she greeted as she passed, and Isaac smiled at him and lagged behind slightly. Scott followed them into the living room.

“Scott!” said Melissa. “Are you okay? You’re okay, right? Do you need something to eat?” For some reason, this resulted in a strange grin from Marco, who was watching her – all of them, really – from the couch.

“I’m fine,” Scott assured her.

“Okay,” Melissa said, turning back to the whole group. “So, suddenly this two person house has become a five person house.”

Cassie blushed and looked at her feet. “I really could just get a hotel room,” she said.

“You stayed here last night,” said Melissa. “There’s no reason you can’t stay tonight. Besides…” She glanced nervously toward Marco. “If he turns out to be some kind of trick from an evil wizard or space lord or something, I figure that’s your job.”

“Despite the fact that I’m the fuse for this bomb?” Cassie asked, gesturing to Marco. He looked like he was going to protest, but he gave up before he even started.

“Makes it even more your job,” said Melissa. “Unless you can get another morpher as capable and experienced as you. And even then, I’d still be having to find room for them, so just shut up and take the couch again.”

Cassie shook her head and moved to sit on the arm of the couch at the furthest end from Marco. She sat the box of blankets down on the coffee table.

“Marco,” Melissa said, turning to him. “The only room we’ve got left is the basement.”

“Uh,” said Isaac, stepping forward nervously. “I could share a room with–“

Melissa cut him up with a sharp look. “I’m kind,” she told him. “I’m not an idiot.”

Isaac stepped back again.

Melissa returned her attention to Marco. “Eva’s coming with furniture tomorrow,” she told him. “For tonight, you’ve got the cushions from the back of the couch and these blankets.”

Marco eyed the box suspiciously. “There are spiders in there, aren’t there?”

“Marco, you have _been_ spiders,” Melissa pointed out, extremely unamused.

“Okay, imagine this for a second,” he said, leaning forward and gesticulating. “Imagine two new arms and two new legs sprouting out of your body. Then, your waist shrinks until you’re almost cut in half, while, at the same time, your upper and lower body begins to swell into more bulbous shapes. And _then_ eyes start sprouting from your skull. Just all over. Your mouth falls apart into a new shape, and your bones push through your skin to form a new shell.”

He pointed to the box. “Now imagine that thing is in there, and tell me you don’t want it dead.”

Cassie rolled her eyes, stood, and picked up the box again. “I’ll go shake them out outside,” she said, moving past Isaac and Scott.

“Thank you,” Melissa called after her. She shook her head at Marco. “You have always been ridiculous.”

“I can be ridiculous and right at the same time,” he argued.

“You don’t even believe the spiders are real,” she said.

“They’re still _really_ creepy,” he argued.

Melissa reached past him, grabbed a cushion from the back of the couch, and threw it at him. “Go downstairs,” she ordered, pointing in the direction of the basement door. He laughed, but he got up to gather the other cushions.

“Mom,” Scott said, stepping forward. “Are you sure? I mean… If it’s just the one night until the basement gets set up, then I can stay with Stiles, or we could even–”

“It’s a tactical decision,” Marco said, cutting him off. He turned to them, and Melissa dropped her gaze guiltily, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You three are in the bedrooms upstairs, yeah? That means that if I’m sleeping on the ground floor or upper floor, and then turn out to be evil, that puts you three at an _extreme_ disadvantage. By putting me in the basement and Cassie on the ground floor, there’s a huge safety buffer for her to work with.” He turned back to the couch to pick up his cushions. “Don’t doubt her; she’s the smartest one here.”

Scott stared at his mother, struggling to picture her as the sort of person who could think through things like that, while Isaac just frowned in confusion, trying to figure out why one strategy was preferable to another. Marco pushed past them to bring the cushions to the basement.

As Scott watched him go, he realized that he didn’t know anything about _either_ of his parents.

– –

“You gonna say what’s on your mind?” Tyler asked, nursing a cup of coffee at the counter of the Argents’ kitchen island. “Or are you just going to keep pretending that you’re having difficulty finding food in a well-stocked kitchen?”

Chris stood from where he’d been pretending to look in the fridge. “Maybe I’m having trouble deciding what I want,” he said.

Tyler laughed at that. “No, you’re not.” There was a sideways glance toward Chris with a hint of a smile. “Is it the alien thing?”

Chris stood there, silently, for a moment. Then, he nodded.

Tyler just smirked and sipped at that cup of coffee.

Chris walked around the island, eying Tyler carefully like he thought he might see something new. “You’re really… a slug?”

A glance up from the cup of coffee. “A Yeerk,” Tyler corrected. “I resemble one of your ‘slugs.’ I am not one. Like… Like a snake and an earthworm.”

“Yeah?” said Chris. “Are you the snake or the earthworm?”

The smirk broadened into a grin. “What do you think?” Tyler asked, leaning forward.

“And you… You’re your own person? Another mind? Controlling Tyler’s?”

“The Yeerk mind controls the human mind, yes,” Tyler answered. “Resistance is possible, but difficult and exhausting. Luckily, Tyler likes me. And I am content enough with him to oblige him a degree of freedom during my control. He gets input on my actions, though I’m the final decider. And sometimes, if I feel like it, I even give him free reign.”

“But you don’t have to?”

Tyler sneered. “No one _has_ to do anything. No one _made_ him agree.”

“But he has a physical disorder,” said Chris.

“I’m a _being_ , not a drug,” Tyler snarled. “My presence may help him, but helping him is _far_ from my purpose in life.”

“And what’s your purpose?” Chris asked.

“Right now?” Tyler leaned back and glanced to the side, wearing a strongly dissatisfied expression. “Survival.” A glance back toward Chris. “In a way, we have that in common. Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent, much?” And there was that smirk again.

“So that slug you were eating the other day…”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed.

“Was that survival?” asked Chris.

Tyler rocked forward on the stool, leaning forward again but in a much more aggressive manner with a sharp, predatory gaze locked on Chris. “I’m licensed to hunt down and kill my own kind, and your country and those of your people who know, they applaud me,” Tyler said. “But reveal that I have to eat them to gain sustenance because Kandrona is increasingly hard to find on this planet where I have found myself trapped, and suddenly it’s a _problem_.”

Chris swallowed. “It’s just that’s it’s…”

“Immoral?” Tyler suggested with a sneer.

“Disgusting,” said Chris.

Tyler laughed at that. “ _I’m_ disgusting? How long have you been human?”

Chris shook his head. He couldn’t help but laugh at that. After another pause of silence and consideration, he finally asked, “You really don’t have your own name?”

She smiled then. More genuinely than before. The kind of smile that could almost convince you that she had a heart. “You can call me Taylor,” she said.

Chris leaned forward on the counter and looked her in the eye. “Taylor?” he said.

Again, her smile widened. “Yes, Chris?” she answered.

“Are you evil?”

She laughed so hard she accidentally fell out of her chair and spilled her coffee, which seemed to only make her laugh more after assuring him several times that she was fine.

It is worth mentioning, however, that she never actually answered the question.

– –

Lydia was roused from her nap by sounds in the next room over. Quietly, she snuck to her door and eased it open. There was a sound of paper rustling. She moved toward the other door, reached out with a shaking hand, and eased the door of the guest room open.

And there she found Allison, actually dressed down in a pair of loose jeans and an oversized t-shirt that looked like it was usually slept in instead of wearing out in public where people could see it. Allison was also wearing steel toe boots, which were usually saved for “special occasions,” which was her way of saying “fighting monsters.”

She was tearing the pictures off the wall. Not even being remotely careful, considering that they were family photos. “Allison!” Lydia cried. “What…?”

Allison glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. “Your mother said you were asleep and medicated, so I decided not to wake you.” Her eyes combed over Lydia slowly. Well, that was fine, because Lydia was certainly staring back.

“Okay,” said Lydia. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing.”

Allison turned back to the wall, looking over her destruction. “Well, we don’t need it anymore,” she said.

“What? Allison, we still don’t know what happened in Los Siete Santos.” Lydia reached over and carefully took down the photo of Rachel and Cassie in the forest. She pointed to the creatures in the background. “Do you see this?”

“Yeah,” said Allison. “Cassie turned into one of those last night. Apparently, it’s called a Hork-Bajir.” Allison took the photo and tossed it to the pile on the floor. “And it’s a vegetarian.”

“There’s no way that’s a vegetarian,” said Lydia.

“The blades are for climbing trees and harvesting the bark.”

Lydia thought about that for a minute. “Well, I suppose that makes sense, but unless their native trees are extraordinarily durable, something more bone like would probably do the job,” she said. “How does such a mutation even begin to take hold? I’m no biologist, but it almost seems more engineered than evol– Allison!”

Lydia interrupted herself to grab Allison’s hand as she started to tear down another picture. “Those are Mr. Alves’s photos!” she said. “Some of them are family pictures! You have to be careful!”

Allison rolled her eyes and made a point of carefully removing the tacks from the outer edges of a photo before taking it down and tossing it to the floor. Lydia sighed and knelt on the floor to gather the photos up more neatly. “Wow, Allison,” she said. “I know you almost died and everything, but…”

“Almost.”

Lydia looked up to see Allison staring at the photos on the walls with a confused expression. “Allison?” she asked.

Allison shook her head. “Almost,” she said again, quietly. “I feel… I feel like I _did_ die.”

“Is that why you can’t dress yourself today?” Lydia asked.

The comment worked. Allison snapped out of her daze to glance at Lydia, then down at herself. She pouted. “It’s comfy,” she said.

Lydia’s eyes were dissecting her piece by piece, pulling out all her parts and examining them with scientific interest, but her motives were far from scientific. “You need comfort today?” she asked. She stood again, still holding the photos.

Allison shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know. It’s just… a lot happened.” She shook her head. “I feel like there’s something under my skin. Crawling through my head. Roaring in my ears. There’s a scream in my lungs that doesn’t come out.”

Lydia eased toward her. “A scream?” she asked.

Allison’s eyes were on her again. “You…” she said. “You brought me back to life.”

“It was nothing,” said Lydia. “Really.”

“It was everything.”

And then Allison was on her. Lips. Tongue. Teeth. The photos fell to the floor, forgotten. Allison pushed Lydia down on the bed. There was a moment, before Allison joined her, in which she merely stood there, looking at Lydia both like she was the most glorious thing she’d ever seen and like she was prey, and it sent shivers through her spine.

– –

To be honest, when Isaac answered the knock on the McCall’s door, he hadn’t been expecting Lydia Martin. It seemed that she hadn’t expected him, either, as her eyes widened upon sight of him. “You,” she said.

“Me,” he said.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

Isaac scratched the back of his head. “I, uh… I kind of… live here now,” he admitted.

“Well,” said Lydia. “I suppose one woman’s poison is another man’s meat.” Once Isaac had turned an adequately deep shade of red, she shoved a shoebox into his hands. “This is for Scott. That’s not all of it. I’ll get the rest to him later.”

Suddenly, the box was yanked out of Isaac’s hands. “What is it?” Marco asked, eying it suspiciously.

“Marco!” Cassie chastised from somewhere else in the living room or possibly the kitchen.

Lydia sighed deeply. “Louboutin heels,” she said. “What does it look like?”

But Marco already had the lid off. “Where’d you get these?” he asked quietly.

“Peter Alves,” she answered honestly.

Marco put the lid back on and shoved the box back into Isaac’s hands. Turning back into the living room, he called, “Cassie?! Does Dad know I’m alive?!” Whatever her reply was, the ensuing conversation drifted out of Lydia’s hearing range.

“None of that went how I expected,” Isaac mumbled quietly, staring down at the box.

“I don’t care,” Lydia said. She turned sharply and started to head back to her car.

“Wait!” Isaac called, hurrying after her. “Lydia, wait!”

“What?” she demanded sharply, spinning back toward him so aggressively that he backed up a step.

“I… Uh, I…”

“You-you?”

“I’m sorry,” he spat out.

She considered him. Eventually, she said, “Expand on that.”

Isaac swallowed nervously, feeling like a teacher was making him answer a question after catching him napping. “I’m, um, sorry about… about assuming you were the kanima and trying to kidnap and kill you without better evidence. And I… I guess even if you had been, that wouldn’t have been okay.”

“Scott, tell you to say that?” she demanded.

“No?” he said, confused again.

“Because it sounds more like Scott than like you,” she said, crossing her arms determinedly and tilting her hips impatiently.

Isaac’s eyes flicked toward the ground, but he forced himself to look at her. He swallowed again. “I… the sort of person Scott is… it makes me…” he floundered. “I mean….”

“Think,” she ordered. “Then, speak.”

He nodded quickly and closed his eyes. He took a few slow breaths as he gathered his thoughts, then opened his eyes (somewhat surprised to see she hadn’t left yet) and said, “Scott impresses me. He’s amazing in a way that I didn’t know people _could_ be. I don’t think he _could_ think bad of me.

“But I do,” Isaac admitted. “I look at him, and I look at me, and I don’t just not measure up, I’m not anywhere near the same league. I look at the things he’s done, and I look at the things I’ve done, and I feel humiliated by myself. I’m… disappointed that I always end up being the person my dad saw instead of the person Scott sees. I want to be someone who’s looked at the way I look at him.”

“You’re nothing like Scott,” Lydia said, and Isaac looked at the ground again, nodding. “But.” He looked up again. “ _If_ you work at it. Actually _try_. Put in the effort. Think before you act, every time you act. Look to _him_ instead of your impulses. Rein in Erica. Encourage Boyd. Work at it instead of just pouting and wishing and breaking out the sad puppy eyes every time you want something… _Then_. Then, maybe I’ll feel like forgiving you.”

“Maybe?” said Isaac.

“You’re lucky you’re getting that,” she told him. “I don’t owe you squat for the regrets you feel as a result of your own actions, of actions that don’t actually affect you other than those feelings of embarrassment and disappointment. And, after everything I’ve been through, I’m _shockingly_ un-inclined to freely distribute my mercy and gratitude to monsters, and I do mean your personality, not your fur.”

“Oh,” said Isaac.

“Yeah. ‘Oh,’” Lydia repeated mockingly. She spun on her heels and stomped back off toward her car. “Goodbye, Isaac!”

She pulled out of the drive just slowly enough to watch him take the shoebox of photos back inside the house and shut the door. She then drove a few blocks over before pulling in behind a gas station to cry. Pretending things didn’t bother her only did so much to actually keep them at bay.


End file.
